Lost impetus

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Dear reader,

The sun fills the thinking room highlighting the ruby red of the wine in the glass.
I take a sip and its smokiness enhances a post lunch laxity.

I have lost all impetus. The days have flown and ever since I said goodbye to Monty I have hardly touched the garden or thought about this blog. After all, there are so many voices out there that are so much better at expressing the 'thing' that is garden making.

I recently read Grayson Perry's advice to aspiring artists - do not try to be global but be more like a celebrated local cheese !
So I've been slowly maturing.
I like that as an aim - to have some integrity - to be rooted and know yourself and your terroir so that the final expression has real connection.

The garden has become neglected - much like many of our gardens at this time of year. My concentration has shifted to making artwork on a scale and output not seen from me since my college days. Perhaps it is due to my mid-life crisis this need to be seen to exist ? Life is still a mystery despite the world wide web and wikipedia. Indeed our digital Tower of Babel has reached to heaven and beyond, far more information than any one human being can comprehend, and yet I still do not understand the ebb and flow of my hormones, emotions and musings which also happen to be the subject of a current artistic collaboration on show at Oriel LLiw Gallery at Pontardawe Arts Centre until 26th Feb.




So the neglect is deliberate on my part because I lost faith in the garden and my ability to make it - the death of my carefully nurtured box hedge didn't help, neither did the spalling of nearly all my terracotta pots and the collapsing shed and pergola - which has still not been tackled. Who cares anyway ?? When we fade - so do our carefully crafted gardens. And then..... And then the garden revealed itself in frost - which it has done several times before - but each revelation is different.




This time it had colour and the white crystalline grass unified everything - it was as if it was made new. This miracle re-awakened my interest - behold all things can be made new !
We need new beginnings in older age.

Paul



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